Archive for December, 2008

OAKLAND — As 2008 ends, more questions than answers remain about the brazen slaying of journalist Chauncey Bailey 17 months ago, and they raise increasing concerns about this city’s beleaguered police force — questions that some officers say are now being asked within their own ranks.

The Oakland Police Department has the lowest homicide clearance rate among California’s large cities because the department is understaffed and the detective work in certain instances is not thorough, an investigation by The Chauncey Bailey Project has found.

At a time when law enforcement leaders nationwide are stressing that accurate data is critical to good police work, the Oakland Police Department cannot produce reliable homicide statistics that meet national standards.

The Bailey Project reviewed cases where defense attorneys and public defenders complained that confessions and witness statements were coerced during long, unrecorded interrogations and other clues were ignored.

OAKLAND — By late July 2007, detectives investigating two North Oakland street killings had strongly tied them to Your Black Muslim Bakery and had a witness who saw a gunman running from a scene, according to a search-warrant affidavit a judge allowed to be released Monday.

COMMENTARY – Oakland, Calif., Mayor Ron Dellums called for an expansion of the state investigation into the Police Department’s handling of journalist Chauncey Bailey’s slaying to include a newly reported delay in the raid of Your Black Muslim Bakery, an operation Bailey was investigating, Thomas Peele and Bob Butler reported for the Chauncey Bailey Project.